


na jaemin, tinder and mittens the cat: the three horsemen of fate

by eckso



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cat, Fate, Huang Ren Jun & Lee Donghyuck | Haechan Are Best Friends, M/M, Matchmaking, Meet-Cute, do people actually use tags to find fics, its 1 am and i havent proofread this but its going up tonight bitches, markhyuck hehe, should i be trying harder here, tinder usage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 08:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30119991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eckso/pseuds/eckso
Summary: He’s waiting for something big, some kind of break in the monotony of shitty pick-up lines and gross come-ons.He wants butterflies. He wants a meet-cute. Some fate shit to make him feel special. Like the stars have aligned or something.Instead, he’s got Tinder, and all the time-wasting unfortunateness that comes with that.(If Donghyuck wants a meet-cute then Donghyuck gets a meet-cute.)
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 45
Kudos: 202





	na jaemin, tinder and mittens the cat: the three horsemen of fate

**Author's Note:**

> hello how is everyone !!!!!!
> 
> i'm back again to publish another work that isn't the one i'm meant to be working on . but this time, with WORK SKINS!!!!! and u bet ur bitch ass it took me 2 and a half hours and a youtube tutorial to figure this shit out so appreciate it or i'll do something dramatic
> 
> ALSO please appreciate my time skip thing, you'll get it in time
> 
> otherwise, enjoy this wee little fic and have a lovely week <3

Donghyuck is not a Tinder person. 

He’s not the kind to want a one-night-stand, or the type to entertain some light dirty talk at 6:30pm on a Tuesday night while he waits for his microwave lasagne to finish cooking. 

He’s not a Tinder person.

Which just goes to illustrate how dire his straits are at this very given moment, sat wrapped in a blanket on Renjun’s bed, lights off, swiping exclusively left (not by choice, but by necessity) on Tinder.

There’s an explanation.

Donghyuck has known Renjun since they were in middle school. Since Renjun and his snaggletooth had first moved from China to Donghyuck’s mostly-white hometown. Donghyuck had sniffed the Asian on him from the other side of their 3rd grade classroom, and clung. 

And from that point forward, Renjun was enough for him. They laughed together and cheated off of each other during exams (which is to say that Donghyuck cheated off of Renjun and Renjun just turned a polite, blind eye to it) and have been best friends since the beginning. Donghyuck has only ever needed Renjun. 

To the point of co-dependence, probably. But, Donghyuck was happy.

However, unfortunately and despite their marriage pact (written on the back of Donghyuck’s name placard from their table at senior prom after they’d ditched halfway through because Renjun had spotted his crush of 2 years kissing a girl), Renjun now has a boyfriend. A serious one.

Which has thrown a very unexpected spanner in Donghyuck’s works.

Said spanner is called Jaemin and he’s probably super nice but he symbolises eternal loneliness and having to share Renjun, so Donghyuck hates him.

The idea to download Tinder had been Jaemin’s too.

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

“Can I come on your date with you?”

Renjun looks at Donghyuck, face devoid of expression for a period of two blinks before he goes back to tousling his hair in the mirror.

“You can answer that question yourself, I think,” he replies, tone saying the ‘no’ that he’s omitted from his verbal response.

Donghyuck grins, an opportunist.

“Great, let me just go get my shoes,” Donghyuck jumps up from under the covers of Renjun’s bed where he’d been sat to bother Renjun and is about to skid down their corridor to his own room to grab his Vans, when Jaemin swings open Renjun’s door and almost clothesline chokes Donghyuck with his extended arm.

“You’re not coming on our date, Hyuck,” Jaemin says, sparing about a second and a half to gauge Donghyuck’s reaction (which is an immediate physical wilt and then a pout), then moving behind Renjun to sit on the bed and wrap his arms tight around Renjun’s waist in the mirror. 

Renjun smiles, one of his hands dropping to hold Jaemin’s around him and the other continuing to mess with his hair. 

Donghyuck expression changes from upset to vaguely nauseated. 

“Renjun said I could come,” Donghyuck says, petulant in a way he only resorts to when he’s desperate.

Renjun’s used to it.

“No, I didn’t,” he replies, unaffected.

“Well, what am I meant to do then? What happened to ‘what’s mine is yours’?” Donghyuck’s whining at this point, a hair away from stamping his feet like a child.

“I recall saying ‘what’s mine is yours’ offhandedly when we were 13, when you asked to borrow a pen in an exam because you’d lost yours,” Renjun blinks, fixing his eyes on Donghyuck, who turns on ‘the cute eyes’ and prays to God Renjun cracks. He doesn’t. “That sentiment doesn’t apply to boyfriends.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to make a rebuttal, the way 11th grade debate class had prepared him to, when Jaemin cuts him off. 

“The ‘mine’ in this equation would also like to add that his consent has been completely removed. I Do Not,” Jaemin says, with emphasis, “consent to having to be Hyuck’s boyfriend. He doesn’t do the dishes.”

Renjun huffs a laugh and turns from looking at his hair in the mirror, apparently satisfied with the tousle, to turn in Jaemin’s hold and pat at Jaemin’s hair instead, like one would a cat.

“Now, you’ve hurt my feelings,” Donghyuck says disappointedly, slumping.

“You’re being dramatic,” the back of Renjun’s head says, still petting. Jaemin makes a sound close to a purr and Donghyuck is disgruntled.

“What am I meant to do while you’re on this date? Just die?” He’s getting more dramatic by the second.

Renjun is still used to it.

“You could do the dishes,” he says, unperturbed. 

Jaemin laughs and they’re laughing at him, not with him.

“I’d rather cut my fingers off,” Donghyuck hates doing the dishes. 

“You could go on your own date,” Jaemin says, like he’s musing. 

Donghyuck sees his mental irritation at the situation grow legs and feet and start stomping down any other rational thought brave enough to pass through his mind.

“With who? I’m abstinent, Jaemin.” He huffs pointedly. 

Renjun retches, definitely at the thought of Donghyuck having sex, which definitely ruffles Donghyuck’s already royally-ruffled feathers even more. 

Jaemin makes a quiet little eureka noise. 

“Download Tinder!” he says, with an audible exclamation point. He looks happy with himself. Like his solution is actually helpful and not just offensive like the rest of the whole situation.

Donghyuck can see Renjun trying to hold in his laughter by the way his shoulders shake from where he’s still facing away, laughing because he knows his boyfriend has just karate-chop-broken the camel’s back.

Donghyuck blinks at Jaemin once, and then twice. Blinks at the back of Renjun’s head once, then twice.

Then storms out of the room with a sound akin to a shriek.

And then, like the child he’s being, he hides in his room, stewing in the turmoil of Renjun’s obvious and unapologetic betrayal, until the two of them call out their goodbyes and Renjun a pointed ‘love you!’ through the apartment (to which Donghyuck mutters back a responding ‘love you too,’ but decides Renjun doesn’t deserve to hear it at the moment). 

By this point, approximately 25 minutes post his breakdown, he’s resigned himself to his fate for the night, which is wriggling around in Renjun’s bed until the owner returns and Renjun’s bedcovers smell like Donghyuck because Renjun will hate that, and playing Candy Crush. 

So, he makes himself a cup of tea, feeling sorry for himself, puts on his favourite hoodie for moping and feeling sorry for himself, and relocates his feeling sorry for himself to the exact middle of Renjun’s bed. 

He lasts an hour and 4 minutes on Candy Crush before he opens the app store to search for Tinder. 

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

He’s just done his 75th consecutive left swipe when he gets a notification that Renjun’s sent him a text.

It’s a picture of Jaemin, taken over the table of a nice-looking restaurant, as he reaches for a slide of garlic bread from their shared plate in the middle of the table.

Then an accompanying text comes through.

**Character B:** MY boyfriend says he hopes you’re having fun on tinder   
  


Then a second. 

**Character B:** also if you did make a tinder, please tell me you didn’t put any of those pictures of you and me dressed as thing one and thing two for Halloween last year cos they Are Not going to get you a boyfriend  
  


Donghyuck clenches his toes and leaves him on read on principal (he also leaves him on read because he actually can’t truthfully tell Renjun that he hasn’t put that picture of both of them with blue hair and awful white face paint on his profile because he has, because it’s funny, amongst several other selfies of his he’d chosen at random), then goes back to swiping.

His main issue with the stupid app is everyone is either ugly or too attractive for Donghyuck to even consider swiping right on without setting himself up to face the certain ego-death of them not having swiped right on him too. 

He’s an interesting mixture of insecure and narcissistic, where he knows he’s leagues more attractive than 95% of the users of the app but doesn’t think himself good-looking enough to even catch the eye of the other 5%. 

And so, he's bored.

He’s waiting for something big, some kind of break in the monotony of shitty pick-up lines and gross come-ons. He wants butterflies. He wants a meet-cute. Some fate shit to make him feel special. Like the stars have aligned or something. Instead, he’s got Tinder, and all the time-wasting unfortunateness that comes with that.

He’s well into the 200’s of left swipes, and not a single right swipe, when something catches his eye.

It’s a group photo (which Donghyuck has already come to despise on this app simply due to the extra seconds it makes him take to tap through to the next solo shot he can find and declare the boy officially ugly before he swipes left, not to mention the raised hopes when he spots a cute friend), but that isn’t particularly what’s given him pause. 

There’s several boys in the picture, all quite good-looking, but the one with pink hair in the centre makes Donghyuck’s eyes widen and his body go rigid for a second.

Jaemin’s in this picture, with his arm around a boy who decidedly is not Renjun.

(As much as Jaemin signifies everything unlucky about Donghyuck’s life, he also signifies Renjun’s happiness. And anything Jaemin were to do to compromise that would call for serious bodily injury, especially making a Tinder profile for himself.)

And Donghyuck is furious right until he thinks to flick his eyes down to read the name on the profile and it doesn’t say ‘Jaemin’.

It says ‘Mark’.

Donghyuck breathes a light sigh of relief like a popped balloon of adrenaline and sags back into Renjun’s bed sheets.

He stares at his phone for a second.

Without the near incapacitating stress of the idea that Renjun’s first serious boyfriend might be cheating on him, Donghyuck taps through the pictures on the account profile and realises the other boy in the picture with Jaemin is not bad looking.

Donghyuck may even hazard saying he’s good-looking. (He’s being a bitch; the boy is definitely very good-looking). 

The longer he looks, he realises he knows this face.

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

Living in student accommodation on university campus means living in close quarters with a larger number of people than he ever has had the (dis-) pleasure of living amongst in his whole life. With this comes an alarmingly large number of interesting interactions.

One particular interaction (or series of interactions) is how he knows this boy’s face. 

A year and a half ago, when Donghyuck first moved into student accommodation with Renjun, fresh-faced and innocent to the general unfortunateness of all things campus-living, he’d been watching a rerun of the Gilmore Girls, as one does, when he got a knock on the door.

Thinking it may be Renjun back from the library or even their RA, he pauses his episode of the Gilmore Girls, tightens the flannel belt of his dressing gown and goes to open the door.

He is wholly not prepared to face the crying boy on the other side of the door. However, said crying boy is very much crying, and Donghyuck decides there is no time to be shocked.

“Are you okay?” He asks, very much confused.

Crying boy, who’s actually just quite aggressively weeping, sniffles. He’s holding a big wad of paper, flyers that say ‘MISSING KITTY CALLED MITTENS HELP ME’ in big font from what Donghyuck can see, and he crumples the top one up to dab at his wet eyes.

“Our cat is missing,” he says, wetly, handing Donghyuck a flyer (thankfully not the one that’s now saturated with tears). 

Donghyuck blinks at the flyer.

There’s a big picture of an admittedly quite cute cat in the centre, white with little black paws (Donghyuck absently understands why the crying boy and whoever the other part of his ‘our’ is called the cat Mittens). Along with the big slogan, there’s also two little pictures down the bottom, one of the crying boy (who isn’t crying in the picture and looks much better for it) and another good looking boy, with the words “GIVE MITTENS BACK TO US IF YOU SEE US AROUND ON CAMPUS PLEASE :(((((((((( OR CALL MARK IF YOU SEE BABY MITTENS 0491 570 156.” 

“I’ll call the number on here if I see anything. I hope you find Mittens,” Donghyuck says, looking back up from the flyer to the crying boy, who seems to have been forced into another round of weeping at the mention of the cat’s name. 

“Me too,” he moans quite pathetically, but smiles through his tears in gratefulness at Donghyuck, who smiles back encouragingly. 

He waits until Jeno’s shuffled off to the next dorm door down the hallway to close the door. 

He mulls over how out of the ordinary the exchange was right up until he’s able to tell Renjun over dinner that night, and then promptly he forgets about it.

Partly because it’s not even the weirdest thing he witnesses in student accommodation that week and partly because he soon gets too stressed out about school to have room in his short-term memory for anything other than when his next bite of food is going to be, between all his vocal lessons and composition assignments. 

One said composition assignment is how he finds himself alone in the Student Lobby of their building at 12:32am on a Tuesday, desperately trying to finish the vocal line of the jazz piece due for his 9am class.

Ideally, he would have been finishing this stupid homework assignment from the comfort of his own bed, but the walls are thin in their new dorm and Renjun’s got too much of his own school stuff to worry about for Donghyuck to feel comfortable forcing him to sit through as many hours of the same jazz melody as it takes him to get it right. 

So, he’s in the deserted Student Lobby, staring forlornly at his Logic Pro window and about to pull his hair out.

Sitting up from his slouch in his favourite armchair, he cracks his back and groans. His shitty jazz piece can wait the 5 minutes it’ll take him to walk to the vending machine across the quad and get a KitKat. 

And so, he leaves his laptop and all his shit spread out on and around his favourite arm chair in the Student Lobby, because it’s now 12:35am and it’s unlikely it’s going to get stolen and because, even if it does, that gives him a great reason for not having finished his composition piece for his 9am class.

A risk worth taking, he reasons. 

His laptop doesn’t get stolen though.

It just gets sat on by a cat.

The cat.

Mittens. 

“Mittens?” Donghyuck, incredulous, asks the very contently sleeping cat from across the Student Lobby as soon as he’d spotted her, half eaten KitKat in hand, “where the fuck have you- you’d better hope you haven’t deleted that bassline I’ve just spent 25 minutes working on with your little mittens.”

Mittens wiggles a bit, seemingly to make Donghyuck’s Mac keyboard a little comfier but doesn’t otherwise rouse. Donghyuck laughs despite himself at his awful pun. Probably because he’s tired.

He sighs and rubs his eyes. Then, turns to go get the flyer the crying boy had given him off his and Renjun’s kitchen table.

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

The number from the flyer Donghyuck digs out from underneath all of the other useless paperwork they have on their dining table picks up on the second ring as Donghyuck walks back from the dorm to the lobby, where Mittens is still soundly asleep. 

“Hey, Mark speaking. Who is this?” 

The voice is soft. Raspy and boyish. Donghyuck looks down at the flyer, looking at the pictures of the two boys.

“Hey, um, I got your number of the flyer the crying kid handed out? Uh, Mittens is asleep in the Student Lobby,” Donghyuck says, and the voice on the other end of the phone breathes an excited intake of breath.

“Jeno, someone found Mittens!” 

Someone a distance away from the phone shrieks loud and immediate, then after a second, makes another loud noise, this one a wail, like they’d abruptly started crying. 

The voice closest to the phone, Mark, Donghyuck looks at the flyer and deduces via a process of elimination, laughs into the speaker. A door opens and slams on the phone line and Donghyuck hears it echo down the hallway in real-time too. 

“Thanks for calling, Jeno’s been alternating between crying and being almost crying since she went missing. He’ll be down in a second to get her,” The voice on the phone says, and Donghyuck nods even though the voice can’t see him.

“You’re fine, glad I could help. She looks fine, but I’ll wait here with her until the crying one gets here?” 

“You shouldn’t have to wait long, he should be-,“ the voice says, right as the crying boy from days ago (who is crying again now) skids around the carpeted corner of the corridor and into the Student Lobby, wearing pyjamas and a furry headband like he’d been about to wash his face. 

The second the boy spots Mittens, still sound asleep, he lets out another loud wail and collapses on the floor into a big pile of tears and flannel pyjamas.

Which the boy on the phone must hear because he forgoes the rest of his sentence to say instead, “There he is,” with a laugh. 

Donghyuck laughs too, despite the touching picture the crying boy (Jeno (?) had the boy on the phone called him?) is painting. 

The crying boy has managed to heave himself off the floor and dry the tears on his cheeks, barrelling over Donghyuck to hug him, tight and slightly damp.

The boy on the phone laughs until the crying boy lets go of Donghyuck and rushes over to Mittens to gently extract her from the chair she’s curled up in so that she rests comfortably in his arms. She snuggles her head into the crook of his elbow and the crying boy coos a wet sound of endearment. 

“Sorry for calling so late,” Donghyuck says to the boy on the phone, really just out of necessity. He’s flustered. 

“No, don’t apologise. Thank you for finding Mittens,” the boy says, sounding sincerely, endearingly grateful. The crying boy is rocking a still sleeping Mittens like one would a baby.

“That’s okay,” there’s a pause where they both just breathe and Donghyuck can’t tell if it’s awkward or not, “well, uh. Goodnight?”

The boy on the phone clears his throat.

“Yeah, yep. Goodnight. Thanks again, we owe you,” he says. Donghyuck waits an acceptable number of seconds and then hangs up the phone, shoving his phone in one of his pockets.

“Uh, I’m gonna go to bed, but I’m glad Mittens is back,” he says to the crying boy, for something to say. He walks forward to grab his laptop and quickly shoves all of his stuff into his bag. 

The boy looks up from where he’d been giving his devout attention to Mittens to look at Donghyuck, like he’d forgotten he was there.

“Oh my god. I owe you the world. My first-born child, or something. A date?” The boy rambles, still swaying with Mittens. 

Donghyuck’s eyes widen a bit. 

“No, it’s okay! Just glad you got her back,” he says, quick, and the boy looks pacified. 

“Alright. Well, I gotta go tuck this little young lady into bed, but thanks again! Let me know if there’s anything me or Mark can do for you! We really owe you,” he says, and Donghyuck nods.

“Okay, yep,” he says, fully prepared to not at all do that. “Goodnight,” he adds, then, “goodnight, Mittens.” 

The other boy tenderly grabs one of Mitten’s little socked paws and puppets it to wave at Donghyuck as he walks backwards back to his and the boy from the phone’s dorm.

Donghyuck watches him waddle back down the corridor, moving weird because he’s trying to sway sideways and walk forwards at the same time, then stopping to open the door to room 7 with his knee and boot it open with his ass so as to not jostle the cat. 

Donghyuck smiles, sighs, and goes back to his own dorm. 

He doesn’t know why but he keeps the flyer. Folds it up and puts it in the top drawer of his desk. Uni memories, for if he ever decides he wants to make a scrapbook diary of his life. Not because he liked the boy on the phone’s voice. Not at all.

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

Donghyuck and his socks skid on the wooden floor of the dorm just like the crying boy did the night he found Mittens, as he races from Renjun’s room to his own, stubbing his big toe on his desk as he slams into it and starts rifling through the top drawer. 

There’s a whole lot more shit in there now, a whole year and a half’s worth of highlighters and course notes that Donghyuck has deemed important at some point and shoved into the drawer, so it takes some time to find the folded flyer, but he does. 

And when he does, he unfolds it, and looks from the Tinder profile on his phone to the pictures of the boys in the corner and blinks. 

A stunningly similar face and the same name can’t be a coincidence, can it?

Donghyuck stands, too absorbed to even notice the dull throbbing in the toe he’s stubbed. His stomach flutters with anticipation.

And he makes his decision. It feels like fate.

He scrunches his eyes shut and makes his first right swipe of the night. 

When he starts seeing colours behind his eyelids because he’s had them clenched tightly shut for too long, he squints them open. 

It’s a match.

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

By the time he’s walked back to Renjun’s bed and gotten himself snuggled again, his eyes have gone blurry for staring at Mark’s face for too long.

He clears on the Send Message bar and starts typing.

**Character A:** hey I think I found your cat last year  
  


He waits a couple seconds, stares into the eyes of Renjun’s Moomin poster like he’s looking into the eyes of God and then looks back at his phone.

Mark’s replied.

**Character B:** Oh my fucking god  
  
**Character B:** Are you the boy Jeno cried all over?  
  


A small smile makes Donghyuck’s eyes crease. 

**Character A:** unless he’s cried on several boys  
  
**Character A:** which he did actually seem capable of  
  
**Character A:** then yes  
  
**Character B:** Holy fuck I thought he was being dramatic when he said you were cute  
  


Donghyuck feels his cheeks pink up a little. He wriggles a bit in Renjun’s sheets to get a bit of his nervous energy out. He tries to play it off. 

**Character A:** i mean i’d love to be able to return the complement, but i can’t say that the lasting impression he made on me was his cuteness  
  
**Character A:** but I’ll take it  
  
**Character B:** Haha fair, he was embarrassed for like a week after ahahah   
  
**Character B:** Didn’t he offer you a date or something hahahahah   
  


Donghyuck huffs a laugh. 

**Character A:** yeah he did, with snot on his face and everything  
  
**Character A:** definitely in my top 5 ridiculous university experiences  
  
**Character A:** matching with crying boy’s roommate on tinder is probably up there too  
  


It takes a bit for Mark to send a reply, and Donghyuck feels the confidence he’s been building during their banter start to erode as the seconds pass. 

**Character B:** Did you only match with me cos you recognised me?  
  


Donghyuck feels his stomach tighten a little bit but a rapid second message comes through before he can respond to the first. 

**Character B:** Wait, how did you even recognise me? We never met  
  


Donghyuck bites his lip. 

**Character A:** i kept the flyer Jeno handed out cos i thought the whole thing was funny  
  


He takes a split second to compose himself and decides to just go for it. 

**Character A:** and cos you looked cute in that stupid picture on it  
  


Another pause. 

**Character A:** i think that answers both of your questions  
  


Mark’s reply is quick. 

**Character B:** Yeah, I think it does   
  


Then there’s a pause, a longer one, where the three dots of doom come and go like Mark’s typing and deleting things as if he’s unsure of what to send. Donghyuck deliberates between deleting the Tinder app or just resetting his phone to factory settings, in anticipation of how Mark’s taken his half confession. His feet get hot with nerves so he kicks off his socks.

Just as he’s about to spiral, Mark’s reply pops up.

**Character B:** Uh this might be too soon, but did you wanna come over?  
  
**Character B:** Jeno did promise you a date  
  
**Character B:** I’m so willing to make good on that promise  
  


Donghyuck smiles, already getting up from Renjun’s sheets to put proper pants on. 

**Character A:** room 7, right?   
  


Mark sends back an affirmative and Donghyuck toes his slippers on. 

**Character A:** i’ll be there  
  


｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

Donghyuck comes to a stop in front of room 7 about 6 minutes later.

He knocks once.

Then waits a second with no response.

Then the door swings open.

He opens his mouth, a greeting for whoever opened the door on the very tip of his tongue, but there’s no one behind the door.

He’s just looking into the dorm for a few seconds, glancing around the open plan kitchen and living room area that look just like his and peering for a second down the hallway across from him, where the bedrooms are, if the rest of the dorm is like Donghyuck and Renjun’s too.

And then he hears a soft little noise at his feet. 

Mittens meows politely at Donghyuck, like she recognises him, when Donghyuck makes a noise of surprise. 

Brows still furrowed in confusion, he crouches to pet her and she meows again in contentment, butting her head sweetly on his knees as he scratches between her eyes. 

“Long time no see, Mittens,” he mutters, glad the cat can’t talk back and point out that his hands are a little damp with nerves where they’re brushing back the fur around her face. Mittens makes a little cat noise in response and flicks her tail along his forearm. 

The sound of feet on the floor coming up the dorm hallway distracts Donghyuck from the cat. He looks up just in time to hear the boy from the phone’s voice.

“Jeno, you won’t believe who I just matched with on- oh!” The boy from the phone, and the boy from Tinder, or just Mark, stands in the hallway, eyes wide. “Oh my god, I heard the door and thought Jeno’d forgotten something,” he says, bashful and endearing with a voice Donghyuck knows, and Donghyuck’s smacked in the face with how cute he is in real life. 

Mittens butts her head into Donghyuck’s hand and makes an urgent noise of dissatisfaction where Donghyuck’s frozen, drawing the attention of both boys to her. 

“Oh my god,” Mark says again, exasperated this time, as he walks forward to grab Mittens by the middle and then turns back to deposit her on the living room couch. Mittens makes an unhappy noise at her extraction.

“Jeno taught her how to open the door cos he could never be assed getting up to open the door for his boyfriend,” he explains, and Donghyuck makes a humoured noise of understanding as he stands from his crouch. “And yet, he wonders how she got out that one time.” 

Donghyuck laughs, following Mittens with his eyes as she jumps right off the couch where Mark’s put her and walks immediately back over to Donghyuck’s feet to meow for more pets. 

Mark clears his throat, almost awkwardly, and Donghyuck flicks his gaze up to him. 

He’s got a hand up, scratching at the back of his neck, and Donghyuck smiles.

Mark smiles back, soft.

Mittens meows again, quietly demanding, at their feet but neither of them are paying attention anymore.

“Did you want to come in?”

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

Even before Mark had left Donghyuck’s side, where he’s now sitting gingerly on the couch, to get him the glass of water he’d offered, Mitten’s is up on the couch too and padding her paws on Donghyuck’s lap. 

“She likes me,” Donghyuck says, just loud enough for Mark to hear over the back of the couch as he grabs them drinks.

Donghyuck doesn’t see, but Mark turns and looks at him over his shoulder, smiling fondly at the back of Donghyuck’s head and the little tail waving happily in the air as Donghyuck pats Mittens whilst she figures out where exactly on his lap she wants to sit.

“She owes you her life, I think,” Mark laughs, coming back over with two waters, which Donghyuck says a quiet thank you for. “Jeno spoils her too much for her to survive on her own.” 

Donghyuck makes a noise of interest.

“Is she his? He seems super attached to her,” Donghyuck says, smoothing his fingers between Mittens’ eyes. She purrs and Mark huffs a laugh, sitting down on the couch next to Donghyuck.

Mittens turns to look at Mark for a second, as if to decide whether his lap would be more comfortable, but seems to make her mind up with Donghyuck, as she stops her padding and curls up, tucking herself into ball with her tail over her back feet.

Donghyuck sticks his bottom lip out, feeling a little bit overwhelmed. He loves it when animals like him. 

“Nah, we co-parent her but he only wanted a cat because he misses his little brother from back home, so. Hence, the emotional attachment,” Mark explains, leaning over to pat along the side of the cat’s face. She purrs a little louder. Donghyuck’s heart jumps. “Which is funny because Mittens won’t even stay in the same room as Jisung. She doesn’t even like sitting on me and she’s legally my next of kin.” 

Donghyuck’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He looks at Mark, who’s looking at him with soft eyes, and then looks down to Mittens in his lap.

“She doesn’t seem like the avoidant type.”

Mark’s eyes smile along with his mouth.

“You said it before. She likes you,” he replies. 

There’s a second of quiet where Donghyuck watches Mittens chest rise and fall and Mark watches Donghyuck’s taken expression, only Mittens’ purrs between them. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Mark starts, and Donghyuck looks up. “What were you doing in the Student Lobby at 1am in the morning that night you found Mittens? What a weird coincidence you happened to find her,” he says, musing. 

Donghyuck makes a contemplative noise. 

“She found me technically. I was out there working on a composition thing for class and got up to get something to eat from the vending machine, then when I got back she was just sitting where I’d been sitting?” he recounts, eyes on the way Mark’s tilted his head to listen to him with round eyes. 

“That’s so fucking cute,” Mark says, endeared and unbidden, then visibly jolts up straight. “Wait, did you say composition? Are you a Music Theory Major?” He asks, words rushed and eyes wide with excitement.

Donghyuck smiles bigger, matching Mark’s energy.

“No, I’m a Performance Major but I took the comp elective and it kicked my ass,” he laughs and the excitement in Mark’s eyes merges with wonder.

“Holy shit, what kind of Performance Major?” Mark asks, looking enthralled. 

“Classical voice,” he laughs, “so you can imagine me trying to finish an already difficult jazz comp assignment the night before it’s due and having to sit in the Student Lobby to do it because I wanted the vocal melody to be perfect,” he laughs, lightly self-deprecating.

Mark looks elated.

“Oh my god, I’m a Music Theory Major and I desperately need a vocalist for this huge project I have due in a couple weeks,” he’s almost glowing with enthusiasm, “would you be down?” And how could Donghyuck say no?

“Yeah,” he replies without hesitation, smiling, “as long as it’s not jazz.”

Mark laughs.

“Nah, nah. It’s pop, if that’s okay. I’ve gotten it written and everything, I’ll let you have a look over the lyrics if you want,” he’s so eager and bright and Donghyuck’s shocked by how near infatuated he is. “It’s called My First and Last.” 

“I’m down,” he agrees with a smile and a nod. And then squints. “How do you even know I’m the vocalist you want?” He says teasingly.

Some of the zeal in Mark’s eyes softens and goes sweet. 

“I just get a feeling.”

Donghyuck stomach swoops and he looks away. He understands. 

“Show me those lyrics, then,” he says, looking back up at Mark, who’s eyes flash, and he nods in elation, already off the couch to get his laptop and his song writing notebook.

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

Donghyuck gets goosebumps when he reads the lyrics of the song. 

Mark notices, asking concernedly with big, round eyes if Donghyuck’s cold, and Donghyuck nods, flustered. 

Enamoured. 

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

“That take was fucking sick,” Mark announces, and Donghyuck makes a flattered noise of contentment, pulling his headphones off.

He grabs his phone from where it had been sitting untouched on Mark’s desk (They’d moved to Mark’s room to record shortly after Donghyuck had read the lyrics to the song, trying to hide his reddened cheeks from Mark’s keen eyes as he’d given his wholehearted approval), and checks the time. His eyes widen.

“Oh my fucking god, it’s 3am. How the fuck-,” Donghyuck says, making Mark breathe out sharply from where he’s got his back straight and arms raised above his head, face scrunched up in a stretch. 

(Recording the first song, My First and Last had only taken about an hour and 15 minutes to finish, but as soon as Mark heard Donghyuck’s voice, his brain began to list the various, many other instrumental tracks he’d had finished for ages that he was just waiting to find the perfect voice for. Donghyuck wouldn’t turn him down even if he wanted to.)

“God. Really? You got here at, like, 7ish, right? It feels like it should only be, like, midnight, at the latest,” Mark says and Donghyuck makes a considering noise.

“I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun,” he says, noise scrunching as he cringes at the corniness immediately after saying it, and Mark laughs with crinkly eyes. 

“I guess you’re right,” Mark concedes, still laughing. His laughter trails off and he looks at Donghyuck, who has picked up the cup of green tea and honey Mark made him an hour or so into recording and is taking little sips from it.

“Would you like to stay the night?” Mark asks boldly, then seems to immediately rethink this boldness. “I mean, it’s not like I’d force you out at 3 o’clock in the morning but would you be okay with- um,” he only stops because his nervously jolting eyes notice Donghyuck is smiling at him.

Smiling because he’s glad to know that the easy, warm comfortability he feels being next to Mark seemingly isn’t one sided. 

“Yeah, I’d like that,” he answers. Because he would.

They argue over who’s going to be taking the couch and who’s going to be taking the bed, Donghyuck only winning on forcing Mark to take his own bed by pointing out that Mittens was still asleep on the couch, and Mark would probably be maimed if he disrupted her sleep. Mark still isn’t happy about it regardless. 

They wake up the next morning and Donghyuck feels that surge of comfortability again when Mark asks, with fidgety fingers, if he’d like to get coffee or something some time later in the week, as he sees Donghyuck out. 

“Yeah, I’d like that,” he answers again. Because he would.

Renjun’s already left for a day of class when Donghyuck gets home to their dorm so he can squeal into his pillow in sheer joy as loud as he likes without being banished to the Student Lobby. 

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

After he’s gotten all of his squealing out, and the butterflies in his stomach have settled, he decides, as a true opportunist, he may as well ride on the coattails of his great mood and do the laundry he’s been putting off for about a week and a half.

He even texts Renjun and asks if he’s got any laundry he needs doing, because his sparkling mood has got him feeling very uncharacteristically charitable. To which Renjun replies:

**Character B:**???????????? are you sick you’re scaring me  
  


To which Donghyuck sends back four of the ‘Face with Hearts Around It’ emojis and one ‘Man in Wheelchair’ emoji accidentally.

He shoves as much of his laundry in his overflowing laundry basket as he can, and sets off to the communal laundry room downstairs, stupid, smitten smile on his face.

His smile dims a little bit the second he gets down there.

He realises he’s forgotten his fabric softener pods as soon as he’s finished loading his bit of washing, which means that wearing his favourite hoodie is going to feel a little bit like sandwiching himself in sandpaper for at least the first 3 wears. 

And then he realises that there’s only 2 working washing machines, which means that he’s going to be waiting a while, because he has at least 3 and a half loads of washing crammed tight into his washing basket.

Yet, he packs his clothes into the second working washing machine and sits on top of one of the broken ones to scroll through TikToks while he waits, his mood is only kind of ruined, which he counts as a success story. On a normal day, this series of events would have caused a breakdown at worst and some swearing at least as best, so he feels pretty spectacular, all things considered, as he lugs all of his clean laundry back up the stairs. 

Until he gets to his door and there’s no resistance when he leans on the door to open it, because it’s already open. 

“Jun?” He sticks his head in and calls into the dorm, wondering if Renjun had gotten home from classes early and forgotten to close the door behind him in his rush to nap or something.

He gets no response. His brows furrow.

Pushing the door open wider, he drags his laundry through the open plan living room and kitchen and down the hallway, peering into Renjun’s room as he passes to check whether he actually had gotten home but just fallen asleep and not heard Donghyuck call for him.

Renjun’s room is empty.

His brows furrow deeper.

He walks further down the hall, with the intention of dropping his laundry off in his room and potentially grabbing his mic stand to use as a weapon, then going back through the dorm to look for intruders when he hears a soft noise from the bathroom as he passes. 

He stops dead in his tracks.

As quietly as he can, he turns towards the half-shut bathroom door and tries to will himself to be able to see through it. It doesn’t work.

He shuts his eyes and grits his teeth. Tightening his hold on his laundry bag, which he decides is heavy enough to do some damage if he needs in the split second he has, and charges at the door.

He must put a bit too much weight on it because it slams open and the door knob smacks into the wall behind it, the noise of which makes him shriek and the intruder jump.

The intruder, whom is Mittens. 

Mittens, the cat.

Sat in his and Renjun’s bath. 

Donghyuck sighs.

Then he smiles.

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･

Mark opens room 7’s door when Donghyuck knocks this time. 

His eyes pass through shades of shock, surprise and then land on a sleepy kind of joy.

Donghyuck smiles, and forgets a bit the reason for his return visit, less than 3 hours since he last saw the boy in front of him. He shakes his head to focus. 

“Your cat is in my bathtub.”

Mark’s face opens up in understanding, then he laughs and nods once.

“Great. Jeno’s crying. I’ll tell him he doesn’t need to print anymore flyers.”

Donghyuck laughs and nods. “Great.”

Mark looks at him for a second, still softly smiling, and makes no motion to move away from the door. 

“Do you want to come in?” he asks. 

Donghyuck feels that surge of comfortability again. 

Then he blinks.

“Your cat is in my bathtub.”

“Oh! Right,” he says bashfully. “Jeno!”

｡･ﾟﾟ･✧( ♥ᵕ♥)✧⋆ ˚｡⋆ ฅ/ᐠ. ̫ .ᐟ\ฅ｡˚⋆✧(♥ᵕ♥ )✧･ﾟﾟ･｡

Donghyuck ends up spending the rest of the day at Mark’s after a crying Jeno has picked up an escapist Mittens from Donghyuck and Renjun’s dorm.

So by the time he actually gets back to his dorm nearly 24 hours since he’d left it, Renjun’s back from class. He’s sitting at the kitchen table with his lunch in front of him, his eyes like a mother’s when he looks up at Donghyuck expectantly.

“Good morning,” Renjun says pointedly at 4:27pm in the afternoon, as Donghyuck kicks off his shoes at the door. “You left your socks in my bed and then disappeared like you’d been abducted. And then,” he stresses emphatically, “you ask me if I have any laundry? Have you hit your head?” 

Donghyuck laughs and walks over to Renjun’s side to hug him around the neck.

“Sorry, Junnie. I wasn’t trying to worry you,” he mumbles, and Renjun grumbles into his bowl of noodles about both the hug and the insinuation that he cares about Donghyuck but Donghyuck sees right through him.

“Do the dishes," Renjun says, lightly disgruntled.

Donghyuck giggles to himself and stands straight again with a final pat of Renjun’s head, going over to the sink and turning on the tap to start washing their dirty plates and bowls.

“Hey, Jun?” He starts, after sudsing up the water and scrubbing a couple of now-clean plates, and Renjun makes a noise of assent from behind him. “Does Jaemin know a kid called Mark?” He turns over his shoulder to look at Renjun. “I saw Jaemin on his Tinder profile last night.”

Renjun lifts his head up from his noodles to look at him, and nods once with a lightly furrowed brow.

Donghyuck picks up a bowl from the sink to scrub.

“Uh, yeah,” he starts, brow still creased. Then, the wrinkle eases as his face changes while he ponders. Donghyuck turns back to the sink. “Funny you ask that actually. He’s Jaemin’s best friend, they grew up together,” Renjun pauses and Donghyuck waits, holding the bowl still.

“I think it was actually Jaemin who forced Mark to get Tinder to meet people, wouldn’t stop complaining about being single after speaking to this kid on the phone once or something?” The end lilts up, like it sounds odd to Renjun’s own ears. Donghyuck’s mouth quirks into a tiny smile. “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Jaem when he comes by later.”

Donghyuck closes his eyes and smiles into the bubbles of the sink, then opens his eyes and puts the bowl next to the plates on the drying rack. Fate is a weird thing.

“No, that sounds about right, actually.”

**Author's Note:**

> HI how was that?????!!?? 
> 
> did you enjoy??????????? i don't know what this fic is or where it came from 
> 
> i would love to hear what bits you liked or didn't and how your day has been please talk to me in the comments i ONLY post for the interactions we get to have :(((((( i miss ya'll when i'm not writing
> 
> HOW CUTE is the mittens time skip ! crying
> 
> i love u, thank you for reading this xx


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